Beginning of a new era in athletics as golden Bolt blitzes world record

Perhaps Usain Bolt had stopped in a phone box beyond the Bird's Nest to change into that gold and green Jamaican suit but for sure only Kryptonite could have done for this Superman.

He did for the world 100 metres with a casualness that made us wonder why we had ever thought that the time of 9.72sec he ran in May was particularly special.

He reacted slowly to the gun, had not a breath of wind at his back to aid him and finished the last seven strides with his arms dropped, out-stretched to his side, his chest turned towards the crowd, high-stepping across the line with a chest thump for good measure.

Lightning finish: Bolt (arms outstretched) blitzes the field to win gold - and shatter his own world record

And when he finished a lap of honour he discovered that he had stopped the clock at 9.69sec.

'This is the beginning of something to come,' said an astonished runner-up, Richard Thompson, of Trinidad.

The record shows that Bolt's reaction to the gun was more than three-hundredth of a second slower than Thompson, the seventh fastest of eight finalists. He probably lost another three-hundredth playing to the crowd in those last 15 metres.

'I wasn't bragging,' he said. 'When I saw I wasn't covered, I was just happy,' he said.

He had beaten Thompson by a fifth of a second, the widest margin in an Olympic final since Carl Lewis, an iconic figure of another generation won in Los Angeles in 1984.

Bird's Nest view: Bolt's lead is clear from distance

The first six men all broke through 10 seconds, the first time that has happened in the Olympics, but only one of them was in the race for gold. 'His was a phenomenal race,' said Thompson.

So is 9.63sec really possible now? Why not when he puts his mind to it. He was the least concerned person in the stadium about a record, not even noticing until he finished the victory lap.

'I wasn't even looking at the time. That is what I came here to do, and I did just that,' he said, pointing to his gold medal.

Point made: Bolt clutches gold and the Jamaican will aim to double his haul with the 200m on Monday

But quicker still? 'Why not, anything is possible. The human body is changing so you never know. I aim just to win but when I saw the replay, I admit, I was amazed,' said Bolt, at 21 several years from his peak at a speed machine.

First though, dare we suggest, his next act in his single-handed saving of track and field will be the destruction of another of its iconic records, the 200 metres time of 19.32sec run in the Atlanta Games 12 years ago this month by Michael Johnson, the last great sprinting hero before the likes of Justin Gatlin and Marion Jones impugned sprinting's credibility.

Johnson, another who ran in golden shoes, believes Bolt will surpass him eventually but not here because the event that begins on Monday will see him run his seventh race in its final. Too much is Johnson's belief. But for Bolt? One doubts it.

A month ago he ran 19.67sec into a slight headwind. Given a tailwind of allowable size and the stimulus of an audience of 91,000 on Wednesday, four-tenths of a second quicker does not seem too much to hope for. And his slowly uncoiling start  becomes less significant over the half-lap.

Delight: Thompson (right) celebrates Trinidad and Tobago's first medal of the Games, while Bolt is apoplectic

For another 48 hours, when the results of his drug test is returned, we shall have to take his performance on trust. But we can probably because he has had 32 tests in seven days, the extraction of so much blood he might echo Tony Hancock's complaint about an armful.

So is it down to nutrition? That, too, seems unlikely since he answered that his two meals on Saturday consisted of nuggets, presumably the chicken variety available from the Olympic sponsor McDonald's in the Athletes' Village.

More likely, it is genetic - the advantage of the fast twitch muscles West Africans have in their genes - allied with the natural advantage that comes from the stride length generated by those incredibly long legs that contribute so much to his 6 ft 5in of height.

No man since Carl Lewis in 1984 has won both 100 and 200 metres but no one is betting against it here.

Cometh the hour of athletic's need, cometh the man in a lightening Bolt.